20 months!

My boy turned 20 months old yesterday. Where does the time go?? It seems like just yesterday my mom was telling me that once he hit 4 months, he'd start sleeping better...and I thought, are you kidding me?? 4 months is forever away! And here we are...20 months!!

He's growing and learning and so fun and SOOOOO cute, if I do say so myself.

His vocabulary changes every day, and I'm convinced that it grew by leaps and bounds during the 5 days we spent w/ cousin Captain. Some of Major's latest words are: cracker, milk, water, marshmallow (do you see a trend here??), duck (it had been just the quack sound for duck, now it's very distinctly DUCK), goose, moon, balloon...and I'm pretty sure he said, "where go Mama?" the other day.

I'm so proud!

He smiles and giggles and laughs no less than a thousand times a day. He loves to snuggle w/ his mama, and when he's tired he grabs my arm, and he wraps himself all around me. When he wakes up, he grabs everything out of his crib to take with us to the living room. And then he has to make sure we turn everything off and shut all the doors we pass on the way out. He LOVES music and loves to dance. Any kind of music and this kid starts bouncing to the tempo. And when a song finishes, or a dance ends, he's the first to start clapping and shouting "Yay, Yay!"

Some of his favorite phrases that he says...that we encourage him to say over and over and over and over are, "Oh YEEAAAHHHHH!" and "Oh boy!"

Whenever anyone leaves, or Major leaves somewhere, he must POUND IT with everyone within a square mile, and we can't leave until he finishes. Thanks for that one, Captain!

Oh, how I love my boy. I love his sweet hugs and kisses. I love his voice as he calls out for Mama when he wakes up. I love his giggles and games and tickles. I love how he brings books to me and then turns around so he can back into my lap for reading time. I love how he puts his stuffed giraffe on his push car, so they can ride around together.

I love how excited he is about all the Christmas lights everywhere. If he walks into the room and the Christmas tree lights and the garland lights and the lights on the mantle aren't all turned on, he insists that I do it right away. When we ride around in the car, he points and oohs and aahhs over all the lights around town. And he TOTALLY gets unwrapping gifts...in fact, I don't know how he's missed the wrapped gifts that are under the tree -- must be the thousands of lights that are everywhere else in the house. =)

There are some things that aren't so much fun, but I guess it means he's learning -- I found 5 socks in his trash can today, I'd been wondering where they were...and he's learned to unlock and open the dishwasher, and how to take his tray off while he's sitting in his high chair (and throw it to the floor), and how to climb up into the chair in the living room and stand up, almost giving his Mama a heart attack as he just about topples over the arm, and he's FINALLY learned the fine art of a sippy cup, and man that kid can drink water and milk.

Life is full and busy and crazy and exhausting, but oh so much fun!


Here he is petting the dog we saw at the Night in Bethlehem at a local church. He was so cute all bundled up, and he just stood there petting the dog for as long as I'd let him. He loves animals!

And here are both my boys at Daddy's favorite restaurant, Jack Stack, in Overland Park.